Patient Portals: How They Can Benefit Breast Centers and Their Patients

Consumer adoption of digital health applications such as patient portals has been on the rise ever since the 2009 HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act opened the door to giving patients more access to their electronic health information.

Although portal use was a bit sluggish in the early years, adoption has steadily increased, as evidenced by a study published in 2017, which indicated that “82 percent [of consumers] reported that they took advantage of their provider’s portal if it was available.”

When factors such as these are added to the shift toward value-based care and new consumer expectations driven by the pivot to virtual care during the pandemic—tools like patient portals that support patient engagement and empowerment will become increasingly essential in all healthcare settings, including breast centers.

The Benefits of MagView Patient Portals

In today’s digital age, consumers are accustomed to having everything at their fingertips. This is true when it comes to shopping, banking, and engaging with others. Increasingly, the same is expected from their healthcare providers, too.

In this context, patient portals enable the immediate access that consumers expect—and offer an easy way to exchange vital healthcare information with their providers. This can be especially helpful when it comes to completing the health history questionnaire before a breast exam.

With the convenience of a portal, patients can take care of this critical task on their own time and when they have access to needed sources of information, such as family members. Being able to complete the pre-exam questionnaire in a leisurely manner can be especially important if the breast center has a high-risk screening program that involves responding to an extensive list of health history questions.

Although many electronic medical record (EMR) platforms include patient portals, they don’t offer the same breast center-focused capabilities that the MagView portals offer. That’s why our portals are often integrated with practice EMR portals to enable an optimal patient experience.

For example, with the MagView Results Portal, breast center staff are able to determine if a patient has opened the electronic notification letter that was sent. If the letter hasn’t been opened, MagView’s system will automatically generate a paper letter.

Additionally, although EMR portals can sometimes collect patient history, this information may not be integrated as needed. If the Mammography Information System is the backbone of the breast imaging workflow, then that history needs to be captured within MagView’s system. Again, this is especially important if the center has a high-risk screening program.

Additional benefits of MagView patient portals include:

• Reduced time spent in the waiting room.
• More efficient check-in process for both patients and staff.
• Quicker access to test results, potentially reducing patient anxiety.
• Significant cost savings for practices related to patient follow-up letters.

MagView’s Patient Portal Solutions

MagView’s portal solutions meet both patient and provider needs through two cutting-edge patient portal tools: the MagView Patient History Portal and the MagView Patient Results Portal.

Magview Patient History Portal

Since breast history forms can be lengthy, patients spend a lot of time in the waiting room filling them out. As noted previously, they also may not have all the needed information available. The good news is that our secure, HIPAA-compliant Patient History Portal offers a convenient way for patients to complete their “paperwork” prior to the visit when they’ll have everything at their fingertips.

The result?

Reduced waiting-room time, a more efficient check-in process, and care that’s based on the information breast centers need.

MagView Patient Results Portal

The MagView Patient Results Portal has a patient adoption rate of approximately 65% across the facilities that use it. That’s good news because communication failures and missed appointments can have major implications in the breast imaging world.

Fortunately, the MagView Patient Results Portal can help breast centers avoid them, by:

• Tracking each recommendation for every patient.
• Automatically generating patient letters regarding follow-up needs.
• Providing real-time communication for patients as soon as results are available.
• Providing access via a personalized email link to a HIPAA-compliant portal on the center’s site.
• Automatically logging the date and time the patient retrieves the recall or reminder letter.
• Gaining the ability to see if / when the patient viewed their letter.
• Automatically generating printed letters after a specific period if a portal-based letter isn’t retrieved.
• Reducing the burdens and costs of manually sending recall and reminder letters. The following infographic demonstrates the potential cost savings involved.

Today’s challenging healthcare landscape requires the use of cutting-edge technologies like patient portals to optimize patient care and help breast imaging centers thrive within a competitive environment.

That’s what MagView uniquely provides—and what MagView can help you achieve.

To learn more about how MagView’s patient portal solutions can help your center, contact us today.